Friday, May 1, 2015

“I’m gonna keep an eye on you!”

Actor-comedian Don Rickles—who celebrates his eighty-ninth
birthday next Friday (May 8)—didn’t become a stand-up comic because of an
overwhelming urge to be funny in front of large audiences…Rickles decided on
his career path after becoming frustrated by his inability to find work as an
actor.Unfortunately for Don, his
prepared material laid goose eggs in the various New York nightclubs where he chose
to perfect his mirthmaking craft.In
response to the ribbing and heckling he received from the crowd, he decided to
lob insults at his detractors…and found his gift for invective got more
appreciative laughs and applause than the jokes he brought with him.His comedy career got a further boost when he
spotted The Chairman of the Board—Francis Albert Sinatra—in a Miami dive at
which he was headlining, and jokingly told Sinatra: “Make yourself at home,
Frank. Hit somebody.”Surprisingly, the singer did not have one of
his hangers-on take Rickles out behind the club to be dealt with in an
appropriate manner; instead, Sinatra encouraged his friends to catch the act of
the man soon to be known as “Mr. Warmth” (though Frankie’s pet name for his
nemesis was “Bullethead”), which paved the way for Don’s bookings into more
lucrative Las Vegas venues.

Don made an auspicious film debut in 1958’s Run Silent, Run Deep (with Burt
Lancaster and Clark Gable), which—though he had appeared occasionally on the
small screen in various anthology programs—paved the way for his subsequent
television career as a much-in-demand guest star on such classic shows as Wagon
Train, The Addams Family, Burke’s Law, The Wild Wild West and
many others.Rickles played “Lyle Delp”
in two classic installments of The Dick Van Dyke Show (“4 ½” and “The Alan Brady Show Goes to Jail”) and
the story goes that his appearance on his pal Don Adams’ Get Smart sitcom—a two-parter
entitled “The Little Black Book”—became
a two-parter because he and Adams ad-libbed so much material they were able to
make two episodes out of the finished product.Rickles was a frequent guest on variety programs and talk shows (Johnny
Carson, Mike Douglas, etc.), and in addition to his television antics was a
fixture in several of American International Pictures’ “Beach Party” films
released in the 1960s.(He’s also turned
in some memorable performances in films like X—the Man with X-Ray Eyes [1963] and Casino [1995].)

A popular personality like Don Rickles would seem a natural
for a television series of his own.He
hosted a self-titled variety series in 1968, and a sitcom with that same title
ran for an eye-blink in 1972.The
problem with the sitcom version of The Don Rickles Show is that “The
Merchant of Venom” had to have a vehicle suitable for his talents; he played an
ad exec in the 1972 series, and it was obviously Don was a fish out of water in
that set-up.With the help of TV veteran
Aaron Ruben, however, Rickles would find his biggest TV success beginning in
December of 1976.Ruben’s main claim to
boob tube fame was taking grease monkey Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors) out of Mayberry
and into the United States Marine Corps with Gomer Pyle, USMC.Utilizing Rickles’ former Navy background
(Don was a Seaman First Class on the USS Cyrene during World War II), Aaron
created for Don a similar service comedy in CPO Sharkey.(Rickles actually guested on a Gomer
episode in 1965, “My Buddy the War Hero.”)

The inaugural episode of Sharkey, “Oh Captain! My
Captain,” introduces us to Chief Petty Officer Otto Sharkey (Don), a
twenty-four year Navy veteran who reigns supreme at a San Diego training base
and who feels out of step in what is now a “modern” Navy; his company of
recruits is a rainbow of various ethnic stereotypes, and he complains to his
best friend and fellow CPO Dave Robinson (Harrison Page) that the introduction
of a female commander, Captain Quinlan (Elizabeth Allen), to the naval base is
the straw that’s broken the camel’s back—he’s turning in his papers and
retiring.But the abrasive Sharkey also
possesses a tenderness in his inner core: he convinces one of the recruits
(Dennis Kort) who’s homesick to stick it out in the Navy (Sharkey lies to the
young man, telling him he was just as scared when he joined), and word of this
gets back to Captain Quinlan, who awards him with a commendation.Sharkey changes his mind about retirement at
episode’s end.

CPO Sharkey copied the Gomer Pyle formula to a T—the only
difference is that the Sergeant Carter character, represented by Rickles’
Sharkey, had now taken center stage.The
role of Sharkey’s Gomer-like foil was played by 6’7” Peter Isacksen, who as country
boy (Seaman) Lester Pruitt towered over his commanding officer, often prompting
Sharkey to needle him with lines like “Why don’t you milk a giraffe?”(In several episodes of Sharkey, Pruitt’s equally
lanky girlfriend Evelyn would appear, played by 6’2” Rhonda Bates.Bates had been a cast member on Blansky’s
Beauties, which I watched back then because I did not know any
better.)The chemistry between Rickles
and Isacksen was one of the highlights of Sharkey, and the pair were memorably
featured together on a TV Guide
cover (with Don having to stand on a footlocker, of course).

One of my Facebook friends is a great guy I know from my halcyon college days at Marshall University, and the guy could be Peter Isacksen's twin, he looks that much like him, I waited until he brought up the resemblance because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. (He commented: "Of all the people. Could not look like George Clooney. Noooo...")

The abbreviated first season (fifteen episodes) of CPO
Sharkey is scheduled to be released in a three-disc collection from
Time-Life on May 19th, and I was fortunate enough to get a gander at the set
courtesy of the generosity from Michael Krause at Foundry Communications.I was a big fan of the sitcom when it
originally aired; I know Rickles’ brand of ethnic insult humor is off-putting
to a lot of people but I think that was the genius of the Sharkey series—it allowed
Rickles to be Rickles, insomuch as you’d expect his character to be undecidedly
non-P.C. due to the nature of his profession.(Think of a watered-down version of R. Lee Ermey’s Gunnery Sergeant
Hartman from Full Metal Jacket
[1987].)Still, I did kind of chuckle at
the disclaimer that’s printed on the back of the DVD: “Warning: Some of the
jokes and ethnic references heard in these episodes would most likely not be
allowed on network TV today and reflect the tenor of the times.”

The emphasis on ethnic humor is one of the show’s
weaknesses, but this is because the individuals that make up Sharkey’s Company
144 aren’t flesh-and-blood human beings but caricatures: you have the jive-talking
Daniels (Jeff Hollis), Jewish intellectual Skolnik (David Landsberg), Latino
Rodriguez (Richard Beauchamp) (who wins the Most Embarrassing Award with his
frequent outburst of “margaritas and mamacitas”), Italian Mignone (Barry Pearl)
and Polish Kowalski (Tom Ruben).It was
a time in TV history when series like All in the Family, Sanford
and Son and Chico and the Man relied on that sort of humor and were popular
shows, and if you know anything about Rickles’ stand-up style he’s nothing if
not an equal opportunity offender.The
exchanges between Sharkey and his pal Robinson work best, probably because they
echo the Archie Bunker-Lionel Jefferson dynamic of Family, in which Lionel
mocks his bigoted neighbor by turning his offensive remarks back at him.

SHARKEY: You people haven’t been at
this very long…

ROBINSON: What’s that supposed to mean?

SHARKEY: Well, let’s face it—not too
long ago all you people had to work with was a frying pan or a bugle!

ROBINSON (clasping his hands): Oh…thank you, Bwana…for leading Young Spearcarrier
to Great White Settlement!

The one individual spared Sharkey’s barbs was Captain
Quinlan, and I’m not sure if that was because she outranked him or because the
people behind the show were leery about letting Rickles appear unlikable by
bullying Allen with his trademark invective.(There was once an unwritten rule in sitcoms that the main character had
to be sympathetic.)In the fourth
episode, “Goodbye Dolly” (12/29/76), the character of Lt. Whipple (Jonathan
Daly) was introduced to provide the show’s star with a suitable nemesis.Whipple was an arrogant know-it-all and brown
noser whose pronounced front teeth would often prompt Sharkey to mimic him in a
“rabbit” fashion whenever Whipple’s back was turned (Sharkey also called him “Lieutenant
Bugs Bunny” out of earshot).Whipple stayed
around for the show’s second and last season when the decision was made to
replace Quinlan with a by-the-book commander in Captain Buckner (played by character
great Richard X. Slattery).

With the exception of “The Dear John Letter” (12/22/76),
which is offered in truncated syndication form only because the episode’s
master has gone missing from the vaults, the remaining episodes of CPO
Sharkey are presented in the best possible shape to be expected from a
series that was videotaped, not filmed.It
was a nice little wallow in nostalgia to watch the sitcom again, and a couple
of episodes were quite enjoyable.I
found “Sharkey Finds Peace and Quiet” to be the best of the bunch; a risible
outing in which our hero rents an apartment off-base to escape the demands of
his recruits and other pests (Whipple) due to his habit of working late.(Sharkey also wants a little rendezvous with “Natalie,”
his girlfriend who, to my knowledge, was only talked to by telephone.This episode also introduces Philip Simms as
Recruit Apodaca, who replaced Mignone in Sharkey’s company come Season 2.)“The Pizza Party” (3/23/77) is also a hoot; a
planned graduation shindig in the barracks has to be halted because Sharkey is
all too aware of the penalty should the men get caught.(TDOY
fave Vito Scotti plays the pizza delivery guy in this, which is probably why I
was entertained by it so.)Of course, it’s
hard to resist the charms of the first season closer, “A Wino is Loose” (3/30/77),
with Hal Horn favorite Larry
Storch as the titular inebriate who insists on overstaying his welcome.(I’ve always been a fan of Rickles’
appearance on F Troop in “The Return of Bald Eagle,” so it was a treat
watching these two old pros work together again.)

Included on the CPO Sharkey set is a classic Tonight
Show with Johnny Carson sequence—one that I joked on Facebook may be
remembered more than any episodes of the actual Sharkey series.Don Rickles’ best friend Bob Newhart was
guest-hosting for Carson one night, and when a joke of Don’s didn’t go over the
way he hoped Rickles accidentally broke the cigarette box Johnny had been
keeping on his desk since the show’s New York days.The next night, Carson returns to find the
damaged box and Doc Severinsen fills his boss in on how the mishap occurred;
informed that Rickles is taping an episode of Sharkey across the way,
Johnny bursts in the middle of taping and gives his frequent guest what for.

I don’t know where the Tonight Show clip of this encounter
featured on the Sharkey collection originated, but I know it’s wildly different
from the one you can
watch on YouTube because the CPO Sharkey collection’s version
eliminates a pair of Carson-emulating-Rickles jokes (he cracks to Don’s Sharkey
co-star Page “I hope you kept the cotton mill down South—if this show goes like
the others, you’ll be out of work come
January!”) and the hilarious bit where Rickles begins to grovel in Johnny’s
presence (“Keep me on your show…you mean so
much to me” ) is shot from a different angle (my guess is that it was one
of the Sharkey cameras).(The bit where
Don introduces Carson to his audience, and Johnny replies in a petulant Jack
Benny manner “They know who I am!” is falling-down hysterical.)

No self-respecting Don Rickles fan will want to be without CPO
Sharkey: The Complete Season One; it was the perfect vehicle for the
comic’s caustic style of humor (though the Sharkey character is really just a
big pussycat), and even when an episode isn’t exactly teeming with giggles
Rickles is capable of carrying the load with attitude to spare (in one episode,
he even self-references his famous nickname by referring to himself as “Mr.
Warmth”).I’m looking forward to
catching Season Two if Time-Life gets that far, and in case it slips my mind
next Friday—happy birthday to you, Mr. Rickles.